


Holding Dr. Grimes' Hand is Better Therapy Than Any Stress Ball Out There

by Calacious



Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [25]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Comfortember 2020, First Time, M/M, Patient!Daryl, Psychiatrist!Rick, Zombie Apocalypse as Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Daryl's been having these nightmares about zombies. Merle convinces him to see a psychiatrist. Dr. Grimes is easy on the eyes, so Daryl doesn't mind.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes
Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996825
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Holding Dr. Grimes' Hand is Better Therapy Than Any Stress Ball Out There

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Comfortember alternate prompt: stress ball

“It just...it feels so real,” Daryl says. He squeezes the stress ball his doctor had given him. He really wants a cigarette instead.

“So, in your dream, the dead were up and about walking around, preying on the living?” the doctor asks in a non-judgmental voice. He’s leaning forward, blue eyes piercing in their intensity, as though there’s something hinging on Daryl’s words.

If their roles were reversed, Daryl’s fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to mask his judgment with a gentle, calm voice, like Dr. Grimes does. He would probably have said something sarcastic and kicked the guy out on his ass. 

Dr. Grimes, however, is nothing like Daryl Dixon, which is both good and bad. It’s good in that the doctor will listen to Daryl’s crazy dreams without thinking he’s, well, crazy. It’s bad, in that the handsome doctor would never even think about crossing the ethical line between patient and doctor care and go on a date with him. 

Not that Daryl’s asked or anything. He wants to, but he already knows the answer. Doctors can't date their patients. At least not doctors like Dr. Grimes. 

“Yeah,” Daryl says. He runs a hand through his hair and squeezes the damn stress ball as hard as he can. It does nothing to quell the desire he has to light a cigarette and feel the calming influence of the nicotine. 

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Daryl asks. He gives the doctor a sidelong look, and bites his lip.

Dr. Grimes pulls at his beard (which looks good on him) and shakes his head. “It’s not crazy,” he says, and then he leans forward, his blue eyes boring into Daryl’s, making him shiver. 

“But, the dead up and walking and hungry for human flesh?” Daryl asks, waving the stress ball around like he would a cigarette. “That kind of shit is certifiably crazy. ‘S why I’m here, talking to you. Fuck.” Daryl leans back on the couch he’s sitting on, and squeezes the ball as if his life depends on it.

“It’s not crazy,” Dr. Grimes insists.

“But, doc,” Daryl says, sitting forward, resting his arms on his knees, and he squeezes the ever life out of that stress ball.

“It’s not crazy,” Dr. Grime repeats. “I...” the man swallows, and Daryl finds himself watching the doctor’s Adam’s apple move. “I’ve had a dream like that, too,” he admits.

Now Daryl’s certain that he’s gone completely around the bend, and that someone is going to come bursting in through the oak door any second and put him in a straight jacket. He wonders if his brother, Merle, a mechanic like himself, will visit him while he’s holed up in the loony bin. He wonders if Merle will bring him cigarettes. 

Probably not, no matter that it was his older brother who told him to go see a psychologist in the first place because of Daryl’s nightmares, and increased episodes of anxiety. He’d thought he’d leave them behind after he’d been home from the war long enough. Apparently not.

“You’re shitting me, right?” Daryl asks, laughing. The stress ball is not going to last much longer with the way that he is squeezing it.

Dr. Grimes frowns and shakes his head. He pulls at his beard, as though deep in thought, and then he takes a shuddering breath, breaks eye contact with Daryl, and looks out of the window. 

It’s a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in sight, and Daryl wonders if the doctor’s seeing any of it. If the look on his face is anything to go by, he’s not, and he might need the stress ball even more than Daryl does.

“You alright, there, doc?” Daryl asks when the silence has stretched on too long, and he finds himself staring at the doctor’s lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss them.

The doctor shakes himself, and returns his piercing gaze to Daryl. “Sorry,” he says, and he clears his throat. 

All that is missing is a pair of glasses for the good doctor to take off and clean on his shirt. It would complete a certain fantasy that occupies the dreams that Daryl has that are not nightmares about the walking dead.

“Tell me,” the doctor says, his voice a little shaky. “In your dreams, am I, am I there?”

Daryl nearly chokes on his spit, and he ends up coughing so hard that his throat hurts and his eyes are watering, and Dr. Grimes is right there, sitting beside him, slapping him on the back, a concerned look on his face. Daryl knows his face must be as red as a tomato. He can’t stop the images of the different things that the dream version of Dr. Grimes had done to him, and what he’d done to the other man in return, from running rampant through his mind. That Dr. Grimes seems to have cottoned onto the fact that Daryls’s had dreams about him does nothing to lesson the images. If anything, that knowledge seems to be beckoning the images to come out and play in technicolor across the forefront of his mind. 

“Are you alright?” 

This close, Dr. Grimes’ eyes look like sapphires caught in the sun. They’re beautiful, and Daryl’s mouth waters, and other parts of his body start showing an interest, and he has to stop thinking nasty thoughts about what he wants to do to and with the good doctor.

“I’m so sorry,” Dr. Grimes says. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was unprofessional, and I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” Daryl says, once he can get his brain back on track. 

He reaches out to grasp Dr. Grimes’ arm when the man moves to leave, and Dr. Grimes goes still. He seems to stop breathing for a few heartbeats, and Daryl wants to shove the stress ball into the other man’s hands to help steady him. Instead, he squeezes the ball, and tamps down on the urge he has to toss it to the other side of the room. 

“Why did you ask that?” he asks, needing to know that Dr. Grimes is not privy to the rated x dreams he’s had of the psychologist. 

“Because I’ve had these dreams, too, and you’re in them,” Dr. Grimes says in a whisper. His shoulders slump, and he’s looking at his hands, and Daryl wants to hold them, but he squeezes the fucking stress ball instead.

“I’ve already asked another psychologist if they’re able to take you on as a client, and they’ve got an opening,” Dr. Grimes says. He looks at Daryl, and Daryl’s heart almost breaks at how much pain and sorrow he sees there. 

“But I don’t want another psychologist,” Daryl says, and this time he drops the stress ball and reaches for the doctor’s hand and squeezes it instead. It goes a long way toward quelling the urge he has to smoke a cigarette, even while it sends a jolt of electricity through him, which does nothing to cool down his libido. 

“It wouldn’t be right,” Dr. Grimes insists. “And Dr. Hershel Greene is a fine psychologist. He was actually one of my professors and he’s my mentor.”

“Why wouldn’t it be right?” Daryl asks, heart beating frantically in his chest, but not with fear, with hope.

“Because it’s a conflict of interest,” Dr. Grimes says. He runs a hand through his hair, and Daryl kind of wants to kiss him right then and there and show him what a real conflict of interest is, but he doesn’t. He wishes he hadn’t thrown the stress ball, though, because he could use it now.

“Wait, my dreaming about having my wicked way with you is perfectly okay, but if you dream about me, it’s a conflict of interest?” Daryl asks without fully realizing what he’s said until Dr. Grimes goes red in the face, and the man’s eyes look like they’re going to bug out of his head.

The man sputters, and opens his mouth and closes it, and it’s kind of adorable, but Daryl’s also a little worried that Dr. Grimes is going to have a heart attack or something. The man is certainly going to give him one if he keeps up this dying fish routine.

Daryl slaps Dr. Grimes on the back, and that seems to do the trick, because Dr. Grimes is no longer breathing erratically, even if he is still red in the face, and his eyes have returned to their natural state. The man swallows, and Daryl worries that he’ll have to slap him on the back again.

“Uh, I hadn’t realized,” Dr. Grimes says. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, and his blush deepens. 

“Shit, I didn’t mean to say that,” Daryl says. It’s the truth.

“That’s quite alright,” Dr. Grimes says. “A lot of patients have dreams about their psychologists. It’s perfectly natural.”

“Is it natural for doctors to dream about their patients?” Daryl asks. He gives Dr. Grimes’ hand a squeeze, fully expecting the doctor to pull away his hand as though scolded, but the doctor squeezes back.

“Sometimes,” Dr. Grimes admits. “It’s not completely unheard of. It’s just, I’ve been dreaming of you since before you started seeing me, professionally that is. What I mean is that you’ve always been in my dreams, er, in these dreams that I’ve been having recently, you’re there, and I’m really messing this up, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of cute,” Daryl says, going for broke, because he’s started stroking Dr. Grimes’ knuckles with his thumb, and the man has still not withdrawn his hand from Daryl’s.

Dr, Grimes’ blush intensifies (Daryl hasn’t seen that shade of red on a human being before) and he looks away. “Uh...”

“So,” Daryl says, feeling bad that he’s left the kind doctor speechless. “If I started seeing this, Dr. Hershel Greene, there’d be no more conflict of interest?”

Nodding, Dr. Grimes’ lips straighten into a thin line, and Daryl squeezes the man’s hand, which causes Dr. Grimes to relax a little. Maybe Daryl can be the doctor’s stress ball of sorts. Not a role he’d mind having, truth be told.

“So, then,” Daryl leans forward, cups Dr. Grimes’ cheek with the hand that’s not holding the doctor’s, “if we were no longer doctor and patient, then I could do this?” 

He presses his lips to the doctor’s and expects some sort of resistance. He’s pleasantly surprised when the doctor moans and opens his mouth instead, deepening the kiss, and moving his free hand to Daryl’s hair.

When they part, both of them are panting, and Dr. Grimes’ lips are plump and pink, and Daryl’s heart settles. It’s as though his world has been off-kilter until this moment, and now everything has been righted.

“Wow,” Dr. Grimes breathes the word out. “We never did that in my dreams.”

Daryl chuckles. “Well, I could tell you a little about the dreams I have about you that have nothing to do with the world ending, and everything to do with setting it to rights.”

Dr. Grimes swallows, and his eyes turn a shade darker. “I’d like that,” he says. 

“Here, let me show you,” Daryl says, throwing caution to the wind and doing what he’s dreamt of doing ever since he’d set foot in Dr. Grimes’ office all those months ago.

It’s everything that Daryl had dreamt of and more. And when the secretary, Maggie, (Dr. Hershel Greene’s daughter) walks in on them a half an hour after Daryl’s appointment was supposed to have ended, no doubt to tell the doctor that his next patient’s waiting, she utters a quiet gasp and quickly shuts the door with a stuttered apology, and a promise to reschedule Dr. Grimes’ clients for the rest of the day.

“Is she going to get you fired?” Daryl asks. 

Dr. Grimes shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, confident.

“You sure about that?” Daryl asks, worried that he’s cost Dr. Grimes a job that he’s really good at. 

“Yeah,” he says. “One, you’re no longer my patient, and two, I caught her and one of our interns doing the nasty in the supply closet the other day.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything worked out then, Dr. Grimes,” Daryl says, nipping at the doctor’s lips.

“I do,” he says. “Now that you’re here.”


End file.
